Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

Abby's Poetry
December 05, 2007

We had a conference with Abby’s first grade teacher recently, during which she expressed mild concern over Abby’s interest in school. She asked us specifically if anything really motivates Abby, since she doesn’t seem to do anything more than the necessary work in her academics. While she’s perfectly capable of doing the work, she doesn’t really get enthusiastic about it.

Abby’s always been her own self, and the one thing that she really does get enthused about is art. Abby really likes to draw, and even her teacher remarked that she’s significantly advanced compared to her peers. She notices details that they don’t and I have noticed that she is able to put abstract images on paper that I wouldn’t even have thought of.

Rebuilt. Again.
December 05, 2007

I’m taking on some more server-management related responsibilities for work, and I’m trying to be a little proactive with getting things under control so that I still have time to code. One thing that I would like to do is have a server configuration that we can standardize on so that when something goes wrong on a server we have many benefits.

The advantages of having a pre-configured system are that we’ll have a way to set up a server again quickly that we know will work with the software we already have on the system. If something goes wrong with one of them that is related to the system settings, we’ll know what we need to fix on all of the servers to make them right, not guess at whether the fix needs to be applied to each.

Razor's Edge
November 27, 2007

I had a most amazing experience today. At lunch I finally stopped at a place that I’ve been eyeing for months. It’s a “traditional” barber shop called “Shaving Grace”.

I’ve been needing a good haircut for weeks now, my last cut falling woefully short of adequate. My bangs have been falling forward onto my forehead in an annoyingly straight line. The most remarkable thing about the woman who cut my hair was not her skill, but the hacking smoker’s cough she’d erupt into occaasionally. Ick.

Riley's Birthday
November 19, 2007

Last Tuesday was Riley’s third birthday. Berta stayed home to prepare things for the day. She took Riley out and bought a lot of balloons and a cookies-n-creme cake that he picked out himself.

Since we ordered a few things for him from the mail-order toy catalogs as gifts, they were a bit delayed in coming, so we didn’t have any gifts to give him on his birthday. Instead, we all went to the toy store and picked out a few things that Riley liked.